Crosby, Malkin, Fleury Get it Going
While it's quite a gloomy Sunday here in Pittsburgh, there has been some sunshine gracing the Penguins lately. The Penguins and Marc-Andre Fleury have won two straight, defeating the Tampa Bay Lightning 5-1 Friday night and the Atlanta Thrashers 4-2 the following day. The victories followed an embarrassing meltdown against the Boston Bruins on Wednesday.
Big-money players Fleury, Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin have been a big part of the turnaround. It's great when role-playing, value guys can get in there and chip in, but for this team to be successful it needs the big guns to step it up on a consistent basis.
Marc-Andre Fleury
Fleury had a dreadful start to the season. He was yanked, benched in favor of Brent Johnson and his confidence was scrutinized. The "Flower" couldn't catch a break and saw only one victory in his first seven decisions.
Now Fleury has captured wins on consecutive days, while only allowing three total goals over that span. I'm not saying Fleury is completely out of the woods yet, but it looks he's headed out of the darkness in a hurry.
These past two victories have been huge. Fleury has looked incredibly sharp and is showing people why it might make sense to drop $5 million on a goaltender. He'll need to string together more that two wins in a row to silence his detractors, but now we know the confidence is there. The ability always was.
Sidney Crosby
How about the Penguins captain? After a slow start to the year, which saw Crosby struggle with a sore hip flexor, the superstar center now is in the midst of an epic scoring streak, collecting 12 points in his past five games played. Despite the hip injury, Crosby has only been held off the score sheet four times this season.
As I write this Sunday afternoon, Crosby is tied with Tampa Bay's Steven Stamkos for the NHL points lead (27). The captain is doing plenty to justify his $8.7 million cap hit. He is true leader, deals gracefully with a constant media barrage and produces on the ice through the good times and the bad.
If any other player on this Pittsburgh squad is searching for inspiration, they need not look any further than right across the locker room to Crosby. The guy is a machine and is proving to be a consistently dominant NHL force.
Evgeni Malkin
Only Fleury has taken more criticism this year than Malkin when it comes to the big-money guys. The flack has been justified as Malkin has certainly looked less than impressive at times. But something seems to have sparked within the big Russian.
Malkin moved back to the center position after the team found out that Jordan Staal would miss an additional chunk of time with a hand injury. No. 71 has played some inspired hockey in that span, putting up seven points in his last four games, including a hat trick Saturday night against Atlanta.
The expectations for Malkin will always be incredibly high, as they should be. He shares an identical $8.7 million cap hit with Sidney Crosby and has showed in the past that he has the ability to be one of the best players in the world, with Conne Smythe and Art Ross trophies in his collection.
The dude can play. Hopefully the last handful of games have marked a turnaround for Malkin as he tries to once again establish himself on the list of top players in the game.
The Big Three
With Staal out of the lineup, Crosby, Malkin and Fleury are now the Penguins' "Big Three." The season will ebb and flow with the "Big Three." These young stars, the core players, the big-money guys, are the key to Pittsburgh's success and lately they've been earning their keep.
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